Farmers Ask Lawmakers for Aid as Export Markets Disappear

The U.S. trade war with China and the stalled revision of NAFTA have severely limited their export markets, filling their warehouses with unmovable products and slashing their revenues, farmers said during a House hearing on the state of the farm economy. The farmers called for a quick resolution of trade disputes with China and ratification of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and suggested another market facilitation program similar to the relief package the Trump administration authorized in 2018 to aid farmers suffering from ongoing sparring over tariffs.

“I want to be clear that I think additional action will be required from this committee, from this Congress and from this administration,” Matthew Huie -- who raises cattle and grows cotton and corn on his Texas farm -- said during a hearing before the Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management on May 9.

Several of the farmers speaking on the panel, including Huie, Georgia farmer Bart Davis, California farmer Dan Sutton and Minnesota farmer Mike Peterson, said the U.S. trade disputes have eliminated some of their most important export markets. Davis specifically pointed to China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. cotton. “This lost market share has reduced overall export sales and shipments, further depressing U.S. cotton prices,” said Davis, who produces cotton, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, hogs and beef cattle. “Coupled with other lost export markets from the ongoing trade disputes, it is clear that supplemental assistance is needed.”

Peterson said that before the current trade disputes, “strong soybean yields and fair prices had kept many farmers profitable.” But disagreements with China “took its toll on the market last year,” he said. “Now our problem with oversupply is only getting worse.” Huie agreed, saying the trade war has led directly to a surge in supply as export markets disappear. “The bins are full, the warehouses are full,” Huie said. “There's not a system in place to move that stuff out.”

Peterson, who produces corn and soybeans, said his farm just began planting for spring “without any assurances” he will be able to sell the products, a problem he said farmers across the country are facing. “If our markets don’t come back, and we don’t have any additional support,” he said, “we’d be better off not producing.”

During the hearing, Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., criticized the Trump administration's negotiations with China, saying it is using “our family farmers as political bargaining chips in a senseless trade war.” Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., asked how Trump’s repeated threats to close the U.S.-Mexico border, including as recently as late March, may impact U.S. farmers. Sutton said the move would have “drastic effects to the agricultural economy,” while Huie called the border “an incredibly important part of our trade,” including his sorghum, all of which was shipped into Mexico last year. “We need a home for those products, we need trade for those markets,” Huie said. “We need stability in that system.”